Liam had tried to imagine what it was like to have a regular family, a father who came home every night and a mother who cooked dinner and read stories. But all that was over by the time Liam joined the family. Their father, Seamus, had brought his wife and five sons to America before Liam was even born. He’d bought a partnership in Uncle Padriac’s long-liner, The Mighty Quinn, working at an occupation that took him away from South Boston for weeks and sometimes months at a time.

Liam had been the first Quinn born in America. He had always harbored a secret guilt that maybe he’d been the cause of his family’s problems. He’d pieced together enough bits of information from whispered conversations between his brothers to know that everything had gone bad about the time he was born. His father had begun drinking and gambling, his mother often shut herself in her room and wept, and when they were together, they fought all the time.

And then she was gone. Conor had been eight at the time, old enough to remember her. Dylan had been six and remembered even less, and, at five, Brendan had only vague memories. As for the three-year-old twins and infant Liam, they’d been left to only imagine the dark-haired beauty who’d sung them lullabies and tucked them into bed.

“Fiona,” Liam murmured, his lips forming her name like a charm against evil. If she were here, he wouldn’t be scared. She was a Quinn, too, and she’d be strong enough to slay the dragon waiting on the porch. “The dragon is leaving.”

The social worker turned and started down the front steps, but suddenly she returned to the door, this time pounding on the weathered wood with her fist. “I know you’re in there,” she shouted. “Mr. Quinn, if you don’t let me in, I’m going to have to involve the police. Your three youngest sons didn’t show up at school today. They’re truant again.”